Clinicalstudy of 88 infants with cholestasis

Objective To investigate the clinical characteristics and the diagnostic method of the infant cholestasis. Methods We collected 88 infants with cholestasis and analyzed the causes ,clinical examinations, pathology and prognosis. Results More males than females were included in the study. Infants two or three months old were more common. Nineteen patients were diagnosed with biliary atresia and 69 patients with intrahepatic cholestasis. 10.1% patients had obvious causes of disease. The level of GGT in the group of biliary atresia was higher than that in the group of intrahepatic cholestasis. The difference of other biochemical indicators was not predominant. One patient were Citrullinemia and 40% patients were suspected to be Citrin deficiency by the screening of urine. All exons and their neighboursequences of SLC25A13 gene were analyzed in 23 children who were in the group of intrahepatic cholestasis. The rate of the final diagnosis of the biliary atresia was 64.7% by B-mode ultrasonic diagnose. The liver pathology indicated that the difference of the incidence of the biliary cirrhosis between the two groups was significant (P 0.01). The differences of the mortality and the rate of recovery between the two groups weresignificant (P 0.01). Conclutions Biliary Tract X-ray examination and clinic observation are the two common diagnostic methods to identify the biliary atresia, however, the former is more accurate. We should pay attention to those infants who are diagnosed intrahepatic cholestasis or those patients who have abnormal liver functions. Identifying the causes of infant cholestasis agressively, especially metabolic disease should be carried out. These patients should be followed for long term.